Kiesha death foreseeable, preventable

Isabel Hayes

But the bubbly little girl who loved Tinkerbell and Dora The Explorer will never grow up to achieve her dreams.

As her mother, Kristi Anne Abrahams was sentenced to at least 16 years for murdering her daughter and interfering with her body on Thursday, emotions ran high in the NSW Supreme Court.

It's a case that has haunted police officers for three years, provoked outrage in the community and sparked a political war over the inadequacy of Family and Community Services (FACS).

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The officer who led the investigation, Detective Inspector Russell Oxford, was visibly moved as he urged parents everywhere to go home and look after their kids.

"All kids want to do in life is to grow up to be loved and to make their mark on this world. The mark Kiesha Weippeart unfortunately made is her death and that's not the way it should happen," he said.

For Justice Ian Harrison, Kiesha's death was "the foreseeable and preventable consequence of equally foreseeable and preventable causes".

"(Abrahams) is an inevitable product of entrenched intergenerational failures," he said as he handed down his judgment.

"The burdensome responsibilities of parenthood are not bestowed only on those who are capable of meeting them.

"(Abrahams) was patently ill-equipped for the role and probably equally unable to recognise it."

He said Abrahams, who suffers from an intellectual disability and had a violent upbringing, most likely murdered her daughter in July 2010 in an "impulsive and uncontrolled act of violence".

"(Her) failings are mirrored in the failings of others," he said.

Justice Harrison said he was satisfied Abrahams, 30, didn't mean to kill Kiesha when she gave her "no more than two blows" to the head in her Mt Druitt home, but rather cause her grievous bodily harm.

After Kiesha died, Abrahams and her partner Robert Smith hid her body in a suitcase for some days before taking it to nearby bushland, burning and burying it.

For the next eight months they claimed she had gone missing, sparking a massive search and a lengthy undercover police operation.

Finally, Abrahams broke down and confessed to an undercover police officer.

She pleaded guilty to murder on the first day of her trial last month.

A post-mortem examination of Kiesha's body found she had suffered severe child abuse in the weeks and months before her death and several witnesses told police they saw Abrahams hitting and screaming abuse at Kiesha on "multiple occasions".

But Justice Harrison said although the evidence raised a "high level of suspicion", he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt Abrahams was responsible.

Abrahams was convicted of biting Kiesha's shoulder when she was just 15 months and in November 2007, a bruised Kiesha, then aged three, told a social worker her mother had burnt her with a cigarette.

It's unknown what action, if any, was taken at that time and FACS said it won't be making any further comment.

Community Services Minister Pru Goward said Kiesha's death was a tragedy and she vowed to improve the system.

For former family friend Alison Anderson, it's too little too late.

"We won't give up until that system changes so the next generation is protected and the generation after that," she said.

Taking into account time already served, Abrahams will be eligible for parole in April 2027.